Caribbean panel advancing battle for reparations
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — A Caribbean commission is expanding the number of former colonial powers it says should provide some form of reparations for the lingering regional impact of the Atlantic slave trade...
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — A Caribbean commission is expanding the number of former colonial powers it says should provide some form of reparations for the lingering regional impact of the Atlantic slave trade.
At a Tuesday press conference in Jamaica’s campus of the University of the West Indies, the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission identified eight European nations that should work with regional governments to “address the living legacies of these crimes.”
A British law firm hired by Caribbean governments seeking reparations initially targeted Britain, France and the Netherlands. But the Caribbean Community reparations panel, which is acting as an advisory group for regional governments, added the names of Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
“When we delve deeper into the history, we find that most of the European nations, including those in southern Europe and central Europe, were also involved in this,” said commission chairman Hilary Beckles, adding that the group is also gathering information on countries such as Switzerland and Russia.
Beckles, who has authored several books on the history of Caribbean slavery, said the commission is preparing to submit its first report to heads of governments, who will ultimately decide how to approach the European nations.
St. Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who takes over the rotating leadership of the Caribbean Community of nations at the start of 2014, has vowed to press the issue, which he calls a “fundamental, defining matter of our age.”
Caricom, as the group is known, announced in July that it intended to seek reparations for slavery and the genocide of native peoples and created the regional reparations commission to press the issue. In addition, eight member states have so far established their own national reparations committees.
The Caribbean governments hired the British law firm of Leigh Day, which waged a successful fight for compensation for hundreds of Kenyans who were tortured by the British colonial government during the so-called Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s and 1960s.
Firm attorney Richard Stein said Tuesday they will go to the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest judicial organ, if amicable negotiations don’t pan out.
“That is the most effective way that the Caribbean states can pursue their claim legally if they’re not able to succeed in the diplomatic dialogue,” Stein said at the press conference in Jamaica.
The reparations commission says the wounds of slavery include psychological trauma that is still evident in Caribbean social life, cultural deprivation that has devalued black identity and a legacy of scientific and technological “backwardness” due to a focus on the production of raw materials such as sugar during the days of slavery.
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